What do you think?
Rate this book
Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
Letters from the Earth is one of Mark Twain's posthumously published works. The essays were written during a difficult time in Twain's life; he was deep in debt and had lost his wife and one of his daughters. The book consists of a series of short stories, many of which deal with God and Christianity. Twain penned a series of letters from the point-of-view of a dejected angel on Earth. This title story consists of letters written by the archangel Satan to archangels, Gabriel and Michael, about his observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by those who believe in both, Twain is able to take the silliness that is present and study it with the common sense that is absent. Not so much an attack as much as a cold dissection. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man. Twain's writings in Letters From the Earth find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever.
321 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1962
About the author
Mark Twain
8,546 books17.6k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which proved to be very popular and brought him nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
However, he lacked financial acumen. Though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, however, he eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.
Born during a visit by Halley's Comet, he died on its return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
AKA:
Μαρκ Τουαίν (Greek)
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which proved to be very popular and brought him nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
However, he lacked financial acumen. Though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, however, he eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.
Born during a visit by Halley's Comet, he died on its return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
AKA:
Μαρκ Τουαίν (Greek)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 535 reviews
November 27, 2022
Do any of us die having said everything we wanted to say? Or having said everything that needed to be said? Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, certainly did not. When he died in 1910 he left behind a substantial cache of notebooks, letters, and unfinished manuscripts, much of which turned out to be a treasure trove of brilliant satirical and existential prose. Herein lies the problem. How do you publish what amounts to be three pages of notes here, eighteen pages of an incomplete essay there, twenty six pages of an unfinished story over there, in a coherent, logical, related format? You can't. What you do is what Bernard DeVoto has done; you combine a selection of the best bits, annotate it with explanatory footnotes, and send it out into the world.
"If science exterminates a disease which has been working for God, it is God that gets the credit, and all the pulpits break into grateful advertising-raptures and call attention to how good he is! Yes, HE has done it. Perhaps he has waited a thousand years before doing it. That is nothing; the pulpit says he was thinking about it the whole time. When exasperated men rise up and sweep away an age-long tyranny and set a nation free, the first thing the delighted pulpit does is to advertise it as God's work, and invite people to get down on their knees and pour out their thanks to him for it."
I'm more impressed with Twain than ever before. His satire was as sharp as any written today, and it's no big surprise that his publishers fought hard to keep so much of this out of the public eye. It wasn't until decades after his passing that Letters from the Earth saw the light of day.
"If [God] had had a motto, it would have read, 'Let no innocent person escape.' You remember what he did in the time of the flood. There were multitudes and multitudes of tiny little children, and he knew they had never done him any harm; but their relations had, and that was enough for him: he saw the wild terror in their eyes, he saw that agony of appeal in the mothers' faces which would have touched any heart but his, but he was after the guiltless particularly, and he drowned those poor little chaps."
Not all of Letters is so biblically condescending. If blasphemy isn't your thing, there's an irreverent slight on Britain's Prince Albert. Or how about a short story on the fallacious faculties of felines? Whatever your particular taste, there is surely something here that you can engage with, that will broaden your perspective and, just maybe, challenge your preconceptions about one of America's most beloved writers.
"If science exterminates a disease which has been working for God, it is God that gets the credit, and all the pulpits break into grateful advertising-raptures and call attention to how good he is! Yes, HE has done it. Perhaps he has waited a thousand years before doing it. That is nothing; the pulpit says he was thinking about it the whole time. When exasperated men rise up and sweep away an age-long tyranny and set a nation free, the first thing the delighted pulpit does is to advertise it as God's work, and invite people to get down on their knees and pour out their thanks to him for it."
I'm more impressed with Twain than ever before. His satire was as sharp as any written today, and it's no big surprise that his publishers fought hard to keep so much of this out of the public eye. It wasn't until decades after his passing that Letters from the Earth saw the light of day.
"If [God] had had a motto, it would have read, 'Let no innocent person escape.' You remember what he did in the time of the flood. There were multitudes and multitudes of tiny little children, and he knew they had never done him any harm; but their relations had, and that was enough for him: he saw the wild terror in their eyes, he saw that agony of appeal in the mothers' faces which would have touched any heart but his, but he was after the guiltless particularly, and he drowned those poor little chaps."
Not all of Letters is so biblically condescending. If blasphemy isn't your thing, there's an irreverent slight on Britain's Prince Albert. Or how about a short story on the fallacious faculties of felines? Whatever your particular taste, there is surely something here that you can engage with, that will broaden your perspective and, just maybe, challenge your preconceptions about one of America's most beloved writers.
July 25, 2008
Satan's letters written during a visit to Earth, this is Mark Twain at his most cynical and offensive. This is a far cry from C.S. Lewis, perhaps even a Bizarro reflection. Long before today's crop of posturing, pompous-ass religious critics, Twain did it better, faster and funnier. For those who like their humor dark as unsweetened cocoa.
July 28, 2015
“The first time the Deity came down to earth, he brought life and death; when he came the second time, he brought hell.”
Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth, which were written under the influence of various blows fate dealt him, like the deaths of his 24-year old daughter Suzy from spinal meningitis in 1896 and of his wife Olivia in1904, never saw publication during their author’s lifetime, probably because they were considered as heavy stuff even with regard to what could be expected of a satirist like Mark Twain.
They are a collection of letters written by the Archangel Satan, who is once again banished from the presence of the Almighty due to certain irreverent remarks on Creation and who, this time, ended up on the planet Earth. To while away his time and to amuse the other Archangels, Satan writes them a series of letters in which he comments on Man as such and on the Christian religion in particular. Satan’s first letter is comparatively harmless and amusing enough since it deals with the Afterlife as it is pictured by Christians, and here Satan states that in Afterlife Man seems to engage in all sorts of activities he shuns or grudgingly consents to during his time on Earth whereas he will abstain in his Heaven from whatever form of pleasure he has known here in this world, such as sexual intercourse.
The following letters, however, become more and more iconoclastic and bitter when the author uses the Bible and the tenets of religion in order to reduce the idea of a loving and caring God to absurdity. Partly, the letters employ a simplistic materialism, e.g. when pointing out the absurdities of the story of Noah and the Ark, but they go deeper than that, e.g. when the question of illness and disease is raised:
”The human being is a machine. An automatic machine. It is composed of thousands of complex and delicate mechanisms, which perform their functions harmoniously and perfectly, in accordance with laws devised for their governance, and over which the man himself has no authority, no mastership, no control. For each one of these thousands of mechanisms the Creator has planned an enemy, whose office is to harass it, pester it, persecute it, damage it, afflict it with pains, and miseries, and ultimate destruction. Not one has been overlooked.
From cradle to grave these enemies are always at work; they know no rest, night or day. They are an army: an organized army; a besieging army; an assaulting army; an army that is alert, watchful, eager, merciless; an army that never relents, never grants a truce.
It moves by squad, by company, by battalion, by regiment, by brigade, by division, by army corps; upon occasion it masses its parts and moves upon mankind with its whole strength. It is the Creator's Grand Army, and he is the Commander-in-Chief. Along its battlefront its grisly banners wave their legends in the face of the sun: Disaster, Disease, and the rest.
Disease! That is the main force, the diligent force, the devastating force! It attacks the infant the moment it is born; it furnishes it one malady after another: croup, measles, mumps, bowel troubles, teething pains, scarlet fever, and other childhood specialties. It chases the child into youth and furnishes it some specialties for that time of life. It chases the youth into maturity, maturity into age, age into the grave.
With these facts before you will you now try to guess man's chiefest pet name for this ferocious Commander-in-Chief? I will save you the trouble – but you must not laugh. It is Our Father in Heaven!“
It is not too difficult to detect the author’s chagrin at the loss of his daughter Suzy through an insidious and senseless disease behind these lines, and yet the deeper question of why a Deity allows His creation to suffer cannot be dismissed. Not even the usual counter-argument of pointing out Man’s liberty of action works here since diseases are usually not brought about by human actions but they simply happen.
The letters also deal with certain gory passages from the Old Testament, as, for instance, God’s cruel and inhumane treatment of the Midianites – which is probably due to the fact that when the Israelites developed monotheism, it was their god of war that by and by replaced all their other deities – but they also criticize the conception of God in the New Testament by pointing out that Jesus not only brought redemption and forgiveness but also the notion of Hell, which is true – just remember Jesus’s frequent announcement of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” for those who do not believe in him and follow his teachings. In a way, this is really hard in that believing in something is not an act of volition; what if I would like to believe but simply can’t? In this context, however, we ought not to forget that the New Testament was not divinely inspired the way the Qur’an claims to be but that it was written by human beings who had their failings and their interests – just consider the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke:
”Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
Theophilus was probably a Roman senator or something similar, and Luke seems to have felt it necessary – doubtless with a view to converting this important person – to write down the life, death and resurrection of Jesus after examining the data available to him. Maybe this explains why Jesus in the Gospels threatens unbelievers with the prospect of Hell over and over again. In the Letters from the Earth, however, a more cynical explanation is given for the invention of Hell:
”Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain, a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs – the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
In time, the Deity perceived that death was a mistake; a mistake, in that it was insufficient; insufficient, for the reason that while it was an admirable agent for the inflicting of misery upon the survivor, it allowed the dead person himself to escape from all further persecution in the blessed refuge of the grave. This was not satisfactory. A way must be conceived to pursue the dead beyond the tomb.”
One might ask oneself the question: Who but the clergy would have any advantage from the notion of Hell?
As one can see, the Letters from the Earth is quite a serious criticism of (Christian) religion, not only of contemporary Christians’ morals but also of their beliefs but its deeper criticism only works if you fail to consider the historicity of the Bible, i.e. that it is, like all other religious tradition, not a word-by-word inspiration coming from the Deity Himself but a man-made interpretation of man-held values and tenets. Some of the basic assumptions made by the author need not even be shared, as, for example, the Letter’s notion that Man, being a divine creation, is not directly responsible for the way he acts since his nature was preordained by God. For all their shortcomings, though, the Letters offer a lot of food for thought, as here:
”We know what the offense was, without looking; that is to say, we know it was a trifle; some small thing that no one but a god would attach any importance to.”
Now that bit has not lost one tittle of topicality for are there not still enough fervent believers in all sorts of religions running through life and claiming that God, the highest Being imaginable, can seriously be vexed by a book, a caricature, a sentence or anything else deriving from puny Man? Hmph.
Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth, which were written under the influence of various blows fate dealt him, like the deaths of his 24-year old daughter Suzy from spinal meningitis in 1896 and of his wife Olivia in1904, never saw publication during their author’s lifetime, probably because they were considered as heavy stuff even with regard to what could be expected of a satirist like Mark Twain.
They are a collection of letters written by the Archangel Satan, who is once again banished from the presence of the Almighty due to certain irreverent remarks on Creation and who, this time, ended up on the planet Earth. To while away his time and to amuse the other Archangels, Satan writes them a series of letters in which he comments on Man as such and on the Christian religion in particular. Satan’s first letter is comparatively harmless and amusing enough since it deals with the Afterlife as it is pictured by Christians, and here Satan states that in Afterlife Man seems to engage in all sorts of activities he shuns or grudgingly consents to during his time on Earth whereas he will abstain in his Heaven from whatever form of pleasure he has known here in this world, such as sexual intercourse.
The following letters, however, become more and more iconoclastic and bitter when the author uses the Bible and the tenets of religion in order to reduce the idea of a loving and caring God to absurdity. Partly, the letters employ a simplistic materialism, e.g. when pointing out the absurdities of the story of Noah and the Ark, but they go deeper than that, e.g. when the question of illness and disease is raised:
”The human being is a machine. An automatic machine. It is composed of thousands of complex and delicate mechanisms, which perform their functions harmoniously and perfectly, in accordance with laws devised for their governance, and over which the man himself has no authority, no mastership, no control. For each one of these thousands of mechanisms the Creator has planned an enemy, whose office is to harass it, pester it, persecute it, damage it, afflict it with pains, and miseries, and ultimate destruction. Not one has been overlooked.
From cradle to grave these enemies are always at work; they know no rest, night or day. They are an army: an organized army; a besieging army; an assaulting army; an army that is alert, watchful, eager, merciless; an army that never relents, never grants a truce.
It moves by squad, by company, by battalion, by regiment, by brigade, by division, by army corps; upon occasion it masses its parts and moves upon mankind with its whole strength. It is the Creator's Grand Army, and he is the Commander-in-Chief. Along its battlefront its grisly banners wave their legends in the face of the sun: Disaster, Disease, and the rest.
Disease! That is the main force, the diligent force, the devastating force! It attacks the infant the moment it is born; it furnishes it one malady after another: croup, measles, mumps, bowel troubles, teething pains, scarlet fever, and other childhood specialties. It chases the child into youth and furnishes it some specialties for that time of life. It chases the youth into maturity, maturity into age, age into the grave.
With these facts before you will you now try to guess man's chiefest pet name for this ferocious Commander-in-Chief? I will save you the trouble – but you must not laugh. It is Our Father in Heaven!“
It is not too difficult to detect the author’s chagrin at the loss of his daughter Suzy through an insidious and senseless disease behind these lines, and yet the deeper question of why a Deity allows His creation to suffer cannot be dismissed. Not even the usual counter-argument of pointing out Man’s liberty of action works here since diseases are usually not brought about by human actions but they simply happen.
The letters also deal with certain gory passages from the Old Testament, as, for instance, God’s cruel and inhumane treatment of the Midianites – which is probably due to the fact that when the Israelites developed monotheism, it was their god of war that by and by replaced all their other deities – but they also criticize the conception of God in the New Testament by pointing out that Jesus not only brought redemption and forgiveness but also the notion of Hell, which is true – just remember Jesus’s frequent announcement of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” for those who do not believe in him and follow his teachings. In a way, this is really hard in that believing in something is not an act of volition; what if I would like to believe but simply can’t? In this context, however, we ought not to forget that the New Testament was not divinely inspired the way the Qur’an claims to be but that it was written by human beings who had their failings and their interests – just consider the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke:
”Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
Theophilus was probably a Roman senator or something similar, and Luke seems to have felt it necessary – doubtless with a view to converting this important person – to write down the life, death and resurrection of Jesus after examining the data available to him. Maybe this explains why Jesus in the Gospels threatens unbelievers with the prospect of Hell over and over again. In the Letters from the Earth, however, a more cynical explanation is given for the invention of Hell:
”Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain, a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs – the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
In time, the Deity perceived that death was a mistake; a mistake, in that it was insufficient; insufficient, for the reason that while it was an admirable agent for the inflicting of misery upon the survivor, it allowed the dead person himself to escape from all further persecution in the blessed refuge of the grave. This was not satisfactory. A way must be conceived to pursue the dead beyond the tomb.”
One might ask oneself the question: Who but the clergy would have any advantage from the notion of Hell?
As one can see, the Letters from the Earth is quite a serious criticism of (Christian) religion, not only of contemporary Christians’ morals but also of their beliefs but its deeper criticism only works if you fail to consider the historicity of the Bible, i.e. that it is, like all other religious tradition, not a word-by-word inspiration coming from the Deity Himself but a man-made interpretation of man-held values and tenets. Some of the basic assumptions made by the author need not even be shared, as, for example, the Letter’s notion that Man, being a divine creation, is not directly responsible for the way he acts since his nature was preordained by God. For all their shortcomings, though, the Letters offer a lot of food for thought, as here:
”We know what the offense was, without looking; that is to say, we know it was a trifle; some small thing that no one but a god would attach any importance to.”
Now that bit has not lost one tittle of topicality for are there not still enough fervent believers in all sorts of religions running through life and claiming that God, the highest Being imaginable, can seriously be vexed by a book, a caricature, a sentence or anything else deriving from puny Man? Hmph.
February 3, 2023
No ha estado mal, irónico, mordaz y muy critico tanto con el Dios de los Cristianos como con el hombre que le adora.
Nos cuenta que ese Dios esta lleno de contradicciones de lo que se predica con los relatos del antiguo y nuevo testamento.
Ahh las cartas son escritas por Satanás que es enviado a la Tierra para observar a los humanos.
Valoración: 6/10
Sinopsis: El libro plantea la cuestión de cómo puede el hombre creer en un dios absolutamente bondadoso y al mismo tiempo creerse hecho a su imagen y semejanza, mientras en la tierra se matan una y otra vez sin aprender de sus errores.
Twain en este libro no niega la existencia de Dios, sin embargo por deducción le atribuye características tan distintas a las que estamos acostumbrados a otorgarle, que resulta muy difícil llegar a imaginar el Dios, no tan solo del cristianismo, sino que también al Dios en el que creen las religiones en general donde se le asignan características que tienen que ver con la trascendencia tanto humana como terrenal, para llegar a un estado de perfección.
Es un libro divertido, dinámico e irónico. Contiene las cartas que Satanás desde su exilio en la tierra a donde fue desterrado por Dios, escribe a sus amigos en el cielo Miguel y Gabriel.
# 28- Un libro que compraste de segunda mano. Reto Popsugar 2023
Nos cuenta que ese Dios esta lleno de contradicciones de lo que se predica con los relatos del antiguo y nuevo testamento.
Ahh las cartas son escritas por Satanás que es enviado a la Tierra para observar a los humanos.
Valoración: 6/10
Sinopsis: El libro plantea la cuestión de cómo puede el hombre creer en un dios absolutamente bondadoso y al mismo tiempo creerse hecho a su imagen y semejanza, mientras en la tierra se matan una y otra vez sin aprender de sus errores.
Twain en este libro no niega la existencia de Dios, sin embargo por deducción le atribuye características tan distintas a las que estamos acostumbrados a otorgarle, que resulta muy difícil llegar a imaginar el Dios, no tan solo del cristianismo, sino que también al Dios en el que creen las religiones en general donde se le asignan características que tienen que ver con la trascendencia tanto humana como terrenal, para llegar a un estado de perfección.
Es un libro divertido, dinámico e irónico. Contiene las cartas que Satanás desde su exilio en la tierra a donde fue desterrado por Dios, escribe a sus amigos en el cielo Miguel y Gabriel.
# 28- Un libro que compraste de segunda mano. Reto Popsugar 2023
May 17, 2008
Cynics bow down before the idol of your seething ire! Mark Twain's critique of the Earth's entanglement with religion as told by an oft-banished-bad-boy-of-heaven we all know (but not so well as we thought) singes eyelashes at times. A series of letters written by Satan himself during a term of expulsion from heaven depict the sad hilarity of mankind's relationship with it's creator. Satan's outside perspective yields Twain an opportunity to express his deep criticism of god-fearing culture. It begins, "This is a strange place, an extraordianry place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane."
At the time of his writing this manuscript he purportedly proclaimed in a letter to a friend, "This book will never be published...in fact, it couln't be, because it would be a felony." The theme of repression is expressed in Satan's own banishment and Twain's choice of perspective being eventual-pure-evil along with his belief the manuscript would never see the light of day push him farther in his advance on common decency than we mostly jr. high Twain excursioners are used to. Moralists will object, but if, like me, you like to see the gloves come off, this antiquated step over the line will take you ten rounds at least.
Also in this volume, such things as a dressing down of James Fennimore Cooper's prose style and a rousing "Unfinished Burlesque of Books on Etiquette", which explains how a gentleman should conduct himself when rescuing a maiden in a fire. This is the backwater of Twain's writing, and its swampy atmosphere can bog you down in places, but the strange creations you find in this volume show dimensions of the writer that were never allowed to become apparent in his lifetime.
At the time of his writing this manuscript he purportedly proclaimed in a letter to a friend, "This book will never be published...in fact, it couln't be, because it would be a felony." The theme of repression is expressed in Satan's own banishment and Twain's choice of perspective being eventual-pure-evil along with his belief the manuscript would never see the light of day push him farther in his advance on common decency than we mostly jr. high Twain excursioners are used to. Moralists will object, but if, like me, you like to see the gloves come off, this antiquated step over the line will take you ten rounds at least.
Also in this volume, such things as a dressing down of James Fennimore Cooper's prose style and a rousing "Unfinished Burlesque of Books on Etiquette", which explains how a gentleman should conduct himself when rescuing a maiden in a fire. This is the backwater of Twain's writing, and its swampy atmosphere can bog you down in places, but the strange creations you find in this volume show dimensions of the writer that were never allowed to become apparent in his lifetime.
April 22, 2014
Okay- after reading this... I so wish I could have sat down with this man and that I could have shared a drink and a chat with him. He was so witty and clever. Hilarious. He must have been something else...
October 27, 2020
This is Mark Twain at his best. Humorous, witty and full of satire for sure. It takes guts to take down scriptures in a sarcastic way. The letters are full of insights but loaded with satire. I mean many religious people wont even realise how well author had managed to pose his views which essentially makes a case against bible and religion as a whole.
Some of the interesting bits are -
" Noah built the Ark. He built it the best he could, but left out most of the essentials. It had no rudder, it had no sails, it had no compass, it had no pumps, it had no charts, no lead-lines, no anchors, no log, no light, no ventilation, and as for cargo room -- which was the main thing -- the less said about that the better. It was to be at sea eleven months, and would need fresh water enough to fill two Arks of its size -- yet the additional Ark was not provided. Water from outside could not be utilized: half of it would be salt water, and men and land animals could not drink it."
"Disease! That is the main force, the diligent force, the devastating force! It attacks the infant the moment it is born; it furnishes it one malady after another: croup, measles, mumps, bowel troubles, teething pains, scarlet fever, and other childhood specialties. It chases the child into youth and furnishes it some specialties for that time of life. It chases the youth into maturity, maturity into age, age into the grave. With these facts before you will you now try to guess man's chiefest pet name for this ferocious Commander-in-Chief? I will save you the trouble -- but you must not laugh. It is Our Father in Heaven! "
" It is curious -- the way the human mind works. The Christian begins with this straight proposition, this definite proposition, this inflexible and uncompromising proposition: God is all-knowing, and all-powerful. This being the case, nothing can happen without his knowing beforehand that it is going to happen; nothing happens without his permission; nothing can happen that he chooses to prevent. That is definite enough, isn't it? It makes the Creator distinctly responsible for everything that happens, doesn't it? "
Some of the interesting bits are -
" Noah built the Ark. He built it the best he could, but left out most of the essentials. It had no rudder, it had no sails, it had no compass, it had no pumps, it had no charts, no lead-lines, no anchors, no log, no light, no ventilation, and as for cargo room -- which was the main thing -- the less said about that the better. It was to be at sea eleven months, and would need fresh water enough to fill two Arks of its size -- yet the additional Ark was not provided. Water from outside could not be utilized: half of it would be salt water, and men and land animals could not drink it."
"Disease! That is the main force, the diligent force, the devastating force! It attacks the infant the moment it is born; it furnishes it one malady after another: croup, measles, mumps, bowel troubles, teething pains, scarlet fever, and other childhood specialties. It chases the child into youth and furnishes it some specialties for that time of life. It chases the youth into maturity, maturity into age, age into the grave. With these facts before you will you now try to guess man's chiefest pet name for this ferocious Commander-in-Chief? I will save you the trouble -- but you must not laugh. It is Our Father in Heaven! "
" It is curious -- the way the human mind works. The Christian begins with this straight proposition, this definite proposition, this inflexible and uncompromising proposition: God is all-knowing, and all-powerful. This being the case, nothing can happen without his knowing beforehand that it is going to happen; nothing happens without his permission; nothing can happen that he chooses to prevent. That is definite enough, isn't it? It makes the Creator distinctly responsible for everything that happens, doesn't it? "
January 1, 2012
I could write a long review of this amazing and shocking book. Mark like I've never seen him before; the Mark I always wanted to hear more from and did not find in his stories of mischievous childhoods in the Mississippi. But i won't write that long review, instead, i will sub it up in the following sentence: Man is a mistake. The human race, basically, is the most horrible species that ever dwelled this earth. We kill, torture, pass judgment, discriminate, and do the worst things possible with the excuse that we are superior, which is obviously a very wrong statement.
But whose fault is it that we're so horrible? is it our fault, or that of our Creator? Our Father in heaven, who hasn't spared us all the pains possible, that even an erring human father would not want his children to go through. Are we God's mistake? or merely his toy? Twain will tell you all about it, through the narration of Satan, Eve, and many others including himself.
But whose fault is it that we're so horrible? is it our fault, or that of our Creator? Our Father in heaven, who hasn't spared us all the pains possible, that even an erring human father would not want his children to go through. Are we God's mistake? or merely his toy? Twain will tell you all about it, through the narration of Satan, Eve, and many others including himself.
March 23, 2013
Писма от Земята, писма до разума: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...
Не очаквах. Знаех в общи линии, че в “Писма от Земята” Марк Твен погромява религията, но чак до такава степен изненада дори мен – сред тези кратки страници великият сатирик е по-мощен и краен от представимото – ироничен, циничен, саркастичен, откровен, направо жлъчен… и страница след страница карикатуризира и пародира християнството и персонажите от бибилията. Воглаве с това, Твен осмива и съвременната цивилизация във вида, в който я вижда към края на живота си и зловещо пророкува, че тя върви към самоунищожение – май е по-прав от всякога. Откровен до болка, той показва неморалното на морала, нелепиците, в които вярва човекът, въобразеното му величие на фона на злодеянията, които извършва ежедневно лично и вкупом. Твен надминава дори Докинс (трябва да си дочета Хичънс, за да видя дали и него) в критиките си – и това нещо е писано преди над век, просто изумителна смелост и достойнство, изумителен размах на разума в една не много различна епоха и в държава, която е убедена до маниакалност, че е хванала Господ за шлифера и тази й привилегия я освобождава от всякаква отговорност.
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...
Не очаквах. Знаех в общи линии, че в “Писма от Земята” Марк Твен погромява религията, но чак до такава степен изненада дори мен – сред тези кратки страници великият сатирик е по-мощен и краен от представимото – ироничен, циничен, саркастичен, откровен, направо жлъчен… и страница след страница карикатуризира и пародира християнството и персонажите от бибилията. Воглаве с това, Твен осмива и съвременната цивилизация във вида, в който я вижда към края на живота си и зловещо пророкува, че тя върви към самоунищожение – май е по-прав от всякога. Откровен до болка, той показва неморалното на морала, нелепиците, в които вярва човекът, въобразеното му величие на фона на злодеянията, които извършва ежедневно лично и вкупом. Твен надминава дори Докинс (трябва да си дочета Хичънс, за да видя дали и него) в критиките си – и това нещо е писано преди над век, просто изумителна смелост и достойнство, изумителен размах на разума в една не много различна епоха и в държава, която е убедена до маниакалност, че е хванала Господ за шлифера и тази й привилегия я освобождава от всякаква отговорност.
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...
March 15, 2007
This book is a varied collection of Mark Twain's later writings, from a period traditionally overlooked by American students but intensely scrutinized in Europe. The titular "Letters from the Earth" series include wry and mildly heretical musings on Biblical lore, Christian cosmology, and human nature in general. These were indeed the basis for a rather creepy children's Claymation TV show in the 80s called "The Adventures of Mark Twain," the sort of thing that nowadays would get program directors drawn and quartered in a megachurch parking lot.
August 31, 2016
This is bitter Twain at his darkest.
In essence he takes the view that Nature is so filled with irrational horror and pain that existence is hardly worth having. Humankind is not much better as its members thrive on stupid contradictions and cruelty. The Bible is filled with thousands of lies and Jesus Christ was himself a sadistic liar.
In such a cosmos God is incredibly stupid, evil, or non-existent. That last is the most comforting thought as it at least allows human beings to concentrate on their own survival without worrying about meaningless idiotic rituals.
There is no doubt but that Twain is deeply sensitive to the very real terrors and pain of life and these are challenges that everyone must face. Unfortunately, Twain thought that humans were merely complicated automatons. If that is the case, they haven't free will and their ability to freely change anything is questionable. So don't look for answers in this challenging piece. But then Twain wasn't trying to provide an answer; he wanted to force the reader to confront the ethical dilemma of existence.
In essence he takes the view that Nature is so filled with irrational horror and pain that existence is hardly worth having. Humankind is not much better as its members thrive on stupid contradictions and cruelty. The Bible is filled with thousands of lies and Jesus Christ was himself a sadistic liar.
In such a cosmos God is incredibly stupid, evil, or non-existent. That last is the most comforting thought as it at least allows human beings to concentrate on their own survival without worrying about meaningless idiotic rituals.
There is no doubt but that Twain is deeply sensitive to the very real terrors and pain of life and these are challenges that everyone must face. Unfortunately, Twain thought that humans were merely complicated automatons. If that is the case, they haven't free will and their ability to freely change anything is questionable. So don't look for answers in this challenging piece. But then Twain wasn't trying to provide an answer; he wanted to force the reader to confront the ethical dilemma of existence.
November 21, 2010
In the last year I've taken great care in crafting my reading goals towards something that will satisfy my need to be a more thoroughly educated guy. I've been an avid reader since my early teens, and as a byproduct I've gained a relatively good grasp of many key books. However, lately the gaps in my education have really become a bother. It is with that said, that I put forward Mark Twain as exhibit A: Letters from the Earth is my first substantial introduction to him. I think I read Tom Sawyer when I was really young, but I mention it mostly as a limp attempt to save face. And wouldn't yo know it, instead of obviously starting there, I begin with a collection of unfinished stories, sketchy essays and other miscellaneous material that was published posthumously. But maybe starting this way is a good thing. This work represents Twain at his most mature and also maybe his most honest. I couldn't help but think while I was reading it, that this may be the best way to get to know him as a thinker before I get to know him as author.
In the primary set of "letters" that share the book's title, Twain meticulously eviscerates the logical underpinnings of Christianity. While reading it, I found it difficult to ascertain how far Twain's anger goes. He saves most of his wrath for humanity, but the ultimate nature of God doesn't get away unscathed either. Near the beginning, his portrait of God during creation as witnessed by the three angels is kind of funny but not without a hint of reverence for divinity. However his distinction between Biblical law and the "law of God" offers little hope for a universally just creator. Man's nature, if it can be traced to a divine origin ultimately does a disservice to both parties if the two are mirrors of each other.
Then again, maybe Twain is simply illustrating that when it comes to this subject, humanity simply has to give up trying to codify the unknowable. This to me is somewhat confirmed by the tone of Satan's curiosity. It's like he's saying "get a load of these dumbasses!" when he describes biblical theology as a backwards set of moral rules that uniformly contradict human nature. Man is wired to enjoy sex, yet the Bible says we are to deny its gravitational pull on us. Heaven is a Christian's ultimate goal, yet it seems devoid of any intellectual value whatsoever. Heaven in Twain's estimation is a world where people sing and play harps in what amounts to some celestial blast of idiotic white noise.
I don't think the letters should be seen as a tract against humanity's natural inclination towards the spiritual, nor do I sense that it's ultimately saying the most reasonable path is all out rejection of God. No, this is a renunciation of an institution for the most part. Perhaps the most scandalous part of it all is the particular angel Twain chooses to take the potshots. Strangely, the Satan here doesn't refer to the fact that he is basically Earth's cosmic villain. This is a Satan that is simply reporting back to his buddies; he is stripped from his dark side in the same way Twain is stripping God from the Christian framework. The God that remains after this split is still problematic, but also more honest.
The rest of this collection is mostly taken from the last 20 or so years of Twain's life. The Papers of the Adam Family offer excerpts from the diaries of the first family on earth, the most interesting of which are Eve's entries. Her portrait of Adam as the humble first scientist and her notes on a crumbling civilization in the years before the flood were some of my favorite moments in the entire book. I also enjoyed Letters To the Earth, where heaven issues an itemized receipt of answered prayers to a miserly coal baron. Cooper's Prose Style is a hilarious but maybe mean-spirited attack on James Fenimore Cooper's literary crimes. The Damned Human Race takes on the notion that we are the pinnacle of evolutionary development, and demolishes the idea that our sense of morality makes us better than animals. Finally, the unfinished novella "The Great Dark" is something altogether different from everything that comes before and it's a real shame that it's basically a rough draft that was ultimately abandoned. When it's really working at first, you definitely gather an H.G. Wells vibe in this story about the veiled nature of ultimate reality.
So who is this Twain I've finally taken the time to meet? I hesitate to make a broad assessment because I have not read one sentence from any of his biographies, nor do I plan to sit down with the newly published Autobiography until I've read more of his material. Let's just say that he ultimately comes across as bitter in this instance. You sense he is very frustrated with how inconsiderate, hypocritical and vile people are to one another, and how our primary religious structures seem to only amplify these traits. This is not a book for someone that is offended easily, because his critiques are venomous in certain passages, and I must admit I was mildly surprised at how far he was willing to take his arguments. Maybe this says more about my preconceptions of Mark Twain going in, and perhaps as I read more I will decipher a better understanding of his overall outlook.
Quotes:
"It is most difficult to to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmnesses; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindnesses repented of in permanent malignities."
- Letters From the Earth; Letter VI
The Biblical law says: "Thou shalt not Kill"
The law of God planted in the heart of man at his birth says "Though shalt Kill"
- Letters From the Earth; Letter X
"Susy: 'Papa, I should think you would take pupils.'
No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are more to me than corner lots and praise.""
- A Cat-Tale
"No work of art can be intelligently and enjoyably contemplated unless you know about tone and feeling; unless you know all about tone and feeling, and can tell at a glance which is the tone and which is the feeling."
- From an English Notebook; Old Saint Paul's
In the primary set of "letters" that share the book's title, Twain meticulously eviscerates the logical underpinnings of Christianity. While reading it, I found it difficult to ascertain how far Twain's anger goes. He saves most of his wrath for humanity, but the ultimate nature of God doesn't get away unscathed either. Near the beginning, his portrait of God during creation as witnessed by the three angels is kind of funny but not without a hint of reverence for divinity. However his distinction between Biblical law and the "law of God" offers little hope for a universally just creator. Man's nature, if it can be traced to a divine origin ultimately does a disservice to both parties if the two are mirrors of each other.
Then again, maybe Twain is simply illustrating that when it comes to this subject, humanity simply has to give up trying to codify the unknowable. This to me is somewhat confirmed by the tone of Satan's curiosity. It's like he's saying "get a load of these dumbasses!" when he describes biblical theology as a backwards set of moral rules that uniformly contradict human nature. Man is wired to enjoy sex, yet the Bible says we are to deny its gravitational pull on us. Heaven is a Christian's ultimate goal, yet it seems devoid of any intellectual value whatsoever. Heaven in Twain's estimation is a world where people sing and play harps in what amounts to some celestial blast of idiotic white noise.
I don't think the letters should be seen as a tract against humanity's natural inclination towards the spiritual, nor do I sense that it's ultimately saying the most reasonable path is all out rejection of God. No, this is a renunciation of an institution for the most part. Perhaps the most scandalous part of it all is the particular angel Twain chooses to take the potshots. Strangely, the Satan here doesn't refer to the fact that he is basically Earth's cosmic villain. This is a Satan that is simply reporting back to his buddies; he is stripped from his dark side in the same way Twain is stripping God from the Christian framework. The God that remains after this split is still problematic, but also more honest.
The rest of this collection is mostly taken from the last 20 or so years of Twain's life. The Papers of the Adam Family offer excerpts from the diaries of the first family on earth, the most interesting of which are Eve's entries. Her portrait of Adam as the humble first scientist and her notes on a crumbling civilization in the years before the flood were some of my favorite moments in the entire book. I also enjoyed Letters To the Earth, where heaven issues an itemized receipt of answered prayers to a miserly coal baron. Cooper's Prose Style is a hilarious but maybe mean-spirited attack on James Fenimore Cooper's literary crimes. The Damned Human Race takes on the notion that we are the pinnacle of evolutionary development, and demolishes the idea that our sense of morality makes us better than animals. Finally, the unfinished novella "The Great Dark" is something altogether different from everything that comes before and it's a real shame that it's basically a rough draft that was ultimately abandoned. When it's really working at first, you definitely gather an H.G. Wells vibe in this story about the veiled nature of ultimate reality.
So who is this Twain I've finally taken the time to meet? I hesitate to make a broad assessment because I have not read one sentence from any of his biographies, nor do I plan to sit down with the newly published Autobiography until I've read more of his material. Let's just say that he ultimately comes across as bitter in this instance. You sense he is very frustrated with how inconsiderate, hypocritical and vile people are to one another, and how our primary religious structures seem to only amplify these traits. This is not a book for someone that is offended easily, because his critiques are venomous in certain passages, and I must admit I was mildly surprised at how far he was willing to take his arguments. Maybe this says more about my preconceptions of Mark Twain going in, and perhaps as I read more I will decipher a better understanding of his overall outlook.
Quotes:
"It is most difficult to to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmnesses; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindnesses repented of in permanent malignities."
- Letters From the Earth; Letter VI
The Biblical law says: "Thou shalt not Kill"
The law of God planted in the heart of man at his birth says "Though shalt Kill"
- Letters From the Earth; Letter X
"Susy: 'Papa, I should think you would take pupils.'
No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are more to me than corner lots and praise.""
- A Cat-Tale
"No work of art can be intelligently and enjoyably contemplated unless you know about tone and feeling; unless you know all about tone and feeling, and can tell at a glance which is the tone and which is the feeling."
- From an English Notebook; Old Saint Paul's
November 29, 2022
Interesantes reflexiones para pensar 🤔!!!
January 24, 2016
This collection of largely unpublished material is the most impressive contribution to books by Mark Twain after "The Mysterious Stranger" of 1916, with which it shares an imaginative grandeur. Mark Twain thought, while he was alive, he was going to terrify the world with a metaphysical masterpiece, "What Is Man?" (1917), but that book is mostly unreadable. However, he included similar ideas in both "The Mysterious Stranger" and Letters From the Earth, and they are both better books as they demonstrate better the genius of his imaginative skills. The cosmic irony of The Mysterious Stranger, in which Satan, a nephew of the "great" Satan, visits a group of boys in the Austrian village of Eseldorf (really Hannibal, Mo., in disguise) results from the incongruity between Satan's enormous powers and celestial foresight, and his contempt of the values of the human race. This irony, almost savagely pressed into the consciousness of the reader, gives range, strength and splendor to the present volume.
The story of the publication of "Letters From the Earth" needs to be told. It was put together as a book by the late Bernard DeVoto, then editor of the Mark Twain papers, as long ago as 1939. Parts of it were even published in the magazines, but the book was delayed for almost a quarter of a century by the objection of Clara Clemens that the papers present a "distorted" view of her father's ideas. In this interval Bernard DeVoto has died, but Clara Clemens' scruples have been overcome, and Henry Nash Smith, who is the present editor of the Mark Twain papers, has got the book out. I picked it up many years ago in an inexpensive paperback version which I have referred to again and again to this day. This is the adult Mark Twain - far removed from his days of creating Princes, Paupers and Connecticut Yankees. (This edition includes bibliographical notes by Bernard DeVoto.)
The story of the publication of "Letters From the Earth" needs to be told. It was put together as a book by the late Bernard DeVoto, then editor of the Mark Twain papers, as long ago as 1939. Parts of it were even published in the magazines, but the book was delayed for almost a quarter of a century by the objection of Clara Clemens that the papers present a "distorted" view of her father's ideas. In this interval Bernard DeVoto has died, but Clara Clemens' scruples have been overcome, and Henry Nash Smith, who is the present editor of the Mark Twain papers, has got the book out. I picked it up many years ago in an inexpensive paperback version which I have referred to again and again to this day. This is the adult Mark Twain - far removed from his days of creating Princes, Paupers and Connecticut Yankees. (This edition includes bibliographical notes by Bernard DeVoto.)
May 15, 2024
A scathing aspersion on the foundation and perpetuation of religion, especially the Judeo-Christian faith, heavy-handed yet with much merit. The best parts were the Letters from Satan and the Lowest Animal chapters.
Here, Twain goes against the grain, considering the time period, and says we need to be a little more humble as a species.
The crux of this whole collection lies in Twain's conviction that humans are low and silly creatures; we think too highly of ourselves, and an intelligent individual will eventually find the folly in superstition, religion, and human arrogance.
Here, Twain goes against the grain, considering the time period, and says we need to be a little more humble as a species.
The crux of this whole collection lies in Twain's conviction that humans are low and silly creatures; we think too highly of ourselves, and an intelligent individual will eventually find the folly in superstition, religion, and human arrogance.
August 31, 2016
Reason brings the courage to take a fresh look at myths and stories in the Bible that have been used as justification for mankind actions for centuries. With a fresh view and a sharp mind, M.Twain provoked me bitter smile after bitter smile while reading Satan's letters. But a first step to break the spell has been taken, so hopefully there is no coming back to dogma and superstition afterwards....
the letters can be read here: http://www.online-literature.com/twai...
the letters can be read here: http://www.online-literature.com/twai...
January 7, 2010
The way Mark Twain pokes fun at Christianity, it's no wonder these writings were originally censored. In Letters from the Earth, Satan reports back to heaven in a series of epistles making light of religion. He explains that Noah and his family were all disease ridden, since God's command to preserve two of every animal also applied to microbes. God, in his infinite wisdom, saw that diseases such as syphilis would be necessary in the world to come. I've got to say, picturing Noah going around and intentionally contracting diseases is quite hilarious.
Also included in this collection are the highly imaginative Papers of the Adam Family where Twain presents us with extracts from Methuselah's diary and Eve's autobiography. Since people lived to be several hundred years old at the beginning of the Bible, it was not uncommon for a man to meet his great great great great great great great grandson, although with thousands of descendants, he wouldn't be likely to remember his name. 100 year olds are referred to as children and a couple who wish to get married at such an early age are advised to wait a few decades. Eve is a scientist and tells us of Adam's discovery that water always runs downhill.
This collection is really a mixed bag. A Cat-Tale is a bedtime story full of puns that Twain told his daughters. There's an essay included in which he points out why Cooper is a poor writer using examples from The Last of the Mohicans, another essay detailing why Twain considered the French more savage than the Comanches, a travelogue from his time in England, and an appeal to use phonetic spelling. He pokes fun at books on etiquette by detailing the proper way for a gentleman to rescue a lady from a fire. In a piece title The Damned Human Race, he explains why humans are lower than animals when it comes to morality.
The highlight for me was The Great Dark, a surreal story which would have made Kafka proud, in which Twain details life aboard a ship traveling across a microscope slide. Microscopic creatures appear as giant monsters to the crew. Though they are traveling across just a single drop of water, it takes them years of traveling in the dark until they get to the bright spot illuminated by the microscope.
Also included in this collection are the highly imaginative Papers of the Adam Family where Twain presents us with extracts from Methuselah's diary and Eve's autobiography. Since people lived to be several hundred years old at the beginning of the Bible, it was not uncommon for a man to meet his great great great great great great great grandson, although with thousands of descendants, he wouldn't be likely to remember his name. 100 year olds are referred to as children and a couple who wish to get married at such an early age are advised to wait a few decades. Eve is a scientist and tells us of Adam's discovery that water always runs downhill.
This collection is really a mixed bag. A Cat-Tale is a bedtime story full of puns that Twain told his daughters. There's an essay included in which he points out why Cooper is a poor writer using examples from The Last of the Mohicans, another essay detailing why Twain considered the French more savage than the Comanches, a travelogue from his time in England, and an appeal to use phonetic spelling. He pokes fun at books on etiquette by detailing the proper way for a gentleman to rescue a lady from a fire. In a piece title The Damned Human Race, he explains why humans are lower than animals when it comes to morality.
The highlight for me was The Great Dark, a surreal story which would have made Kafka proud, in which Twain details life aboard a ship traveling across a microscope slide. Microscopic creatures appear as giant monsters to the crew. Though they are traveling across just a single drop of water, it takes them years of traveling in the dark until they get to the bright spot illuminated by the microscope.
March 13, 2017
Mi primer 5 estrellas del año.
Le tenia miedo a este libro, tenia miedo sobre lo que podría encontrar en sus páginas, pero una vez más el ingenio, la ironía y la sagacidad de Twain me han dejado con un gran sabor.
Pronto tendrán mi reseña en el blog.
Le tenia miedo a este libro, tenia miedo sobre lo que podría encontrar en sus páginas, pero una vez más el ingenio, la ironía y la sagacidad de Twain me han dejado con un gran sabor.
Pronto tendrán mi reseña en el blog.
June 5, 2014
Hilarious! Christianity's silliness revealed.
August 6, 2011
Read anything by Twain, and you come away rather the same: laughing at and angry with your fellow humans for being so witless and mean to each other. (Imagine what he would say about Fox News today!) Twain's cynicism and sarcasm are more refined in his classics, but generally, one feels that soul in this collection of obscure stories. Many are incomplete; a few drag as boring and apparently unedited; but there are a few inspired pieces worth reading.
The titular story, “Letters From the Earth”, is a gem that will still scandalize over-pious folk. Here, a stunned angel (Satan) describes the silly awkwardness that we have created as our religion. The cultural image of ‘heaven’, for instance, seems to have shifted over the generations, but the fact that 'we' never think clearly about our sacred projections remains the same, namely that we leave out of our idea great joys like sex and intellectual pursuit, and put in quite mundane unlikable ideas of clouds and singing. "Many of these people have the reasoning faculty, but no one uses it in religious matters." (24) Eden is cleverly re-imagined, as were the purposes and logistics of Noah’s Ark full of 68 Billion diseased flies. As the Letters reach forward to Jesus, Twain's satirical heresies move from humourous to bitter, as he blames Jesus for inventing Hell, and rails on God for bringing such disproportional wrath onto the poor and innocent.
“Papers of the Adams Family” has its moments, attacking such diverse topics as baseball, politics, music, old conservatives and greedy commercialism; but is a work in progress that doesn’t together well. "The Damned Human Race" is also worth a look, focusing squarely on the maniacal ways we treat each other, such that Darwin had it backwards--we did not ascend, but have descended from the more moral animals! Otherwise, there is much forgetable, excepting a few choice phrases scattered throughout:
"There has never been an intelligent person of the age of sixty who would consent to live his life over again." (34)
“Man is a fool; you are now aware that woman is a damn fool.” (43)
"The nation has sold its honor for a phrase." (98)
"There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket." (99)
"There is no place in London which is less than two miles and a half from any other place." (141)
"The Comanche has had no religion, and hence no pressing motive to reform his brother by killing him." (146)
"France is entitled to a distinguished place among the partly civilized peoples of our globe." (151)
Perhaps the oldest example of the phrase "What's up?" (160)
"You never see a man bald-headed on his chin." (183)
The titular story, “Letters From the Earth”, is a gem that will still scandalize over-pious folk. Here, a stunned angel (Satan) describes the silly awkwardness that we have created as our religion. The cultural image of ‘heaven’, for instance, seems to have shifted over the generations, but the fact that 'we' never think clearly about our sacred projections remains the same, namely that we leave out of our idea great joys like sex and intellectual pursuit, and put in quite mundane unlikable ideas of clouds and singing. "Many of these people have the reasoning faculty, but no one uses it in religious matters." (24) Eden is cleverly re-imagined, as were the purposes and logistics of Noah’s Ark full of 68 Billion diseased flies. As the Letters reach forward to Jesus, Twain's satirical heresies move from humourous to bitter, as he blames Jesus for inventing Hell, and rails on God for bringing such disproportional wrath onto the poor and innocent.
“Papers of the Adams Family” has its moments, attacking such diverse topics as baseball, politics, music, old conservatives and greedy commercialism; but is a work in progress that doesn’t together well. "The Damned Human Race" is also worth a look, focusing squarely on the maniacal ways we treat each other, such that Darwin had it backwards--we did not ascend, but have descended from the more moral animals! Otherwise, there is much forgetable, excepting a few choice phrases scattered throughout:
"There has never been an intelligent person of the age of sixty who would consent to live his life over again." (34)
“Man is a fool; you are now aware that woman is a damn fool.” (43)
"The nation has sold its honor for a phrase." (98)
"There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket." (99)
"There is no place in London which is less than two miles and a half from any other place." (141)
"The Comanche has had no religion, and hence no pressing motive to reform his brother by killing him." (146)
"France is entitled to a distinguished place among the partly civilized peoples of our globe." (151)
Perhaps the oldest example of the phrase "What's up?" (160)
"You never see a man bald-headed on his chin." (183)
January 3, 2011
i should note that i didn't read this edition. i wanted to give the text 4 stars, because it's a great (if apparently unfinished) collection of essays.
be warned, though, of the edition that i did get: it's the one that first pops up on an amazon search (at least, during the current time period, it's the first: this review may have an expiration date); it's got a green cover and two goofy red Satanic eyes staring out from the top, published by "Greenbook Publications, LLC."
it's a crime against Twain and a vicious insult to the reader; it was obviously cut & pasted verbatim from (or, bejesus forbid, the /source/ of) an Internet edition that exists on various different sites, all of which contain the same typo patterns. in particular, there are at least two glaringly obvious typos /per page/, a bunch of meaning-changing homophone errors (not intended by the author, as they don't appear in editions which had, you know, editors), not to mention what I think is a near-complete removal of the author's original italics, which changes both emphasis, meaning and level of humor inherent in the text. if the "publishers" of my edition had bothered to even read the 50-page leaflet they charged me 9 bucks for (printed on demand, btw - the printing datestamp was the same day i ordered it), they would've fixed at least some of the bugs and not left this a frustrating and obnoxious reading experience.
this edition here that i picked for the review, on the other hand -- according to samples i was able to compare from Google Books -- has corrected all the typos and printed a version which does good credit to both the author and the reader. if you want it, get this one instead. (it may have other writings in it than "letters from the earth;" check the manifest. i'm only reviewing that little collection.)
be warned, though, of the edition that i did get: it's the one that first pops up on an amazon search (at least, during the current time period, it's the first: this review may have an expiration date); it's got a green cover and two goofy red Satanic eyes staring out from the top, published by "Greenbook Publications, LLC."
it's a crime against Twain and a vicious insult to the reader; it was obviously cut & pasted verbatim from (or, bejesus forbid, the /source/ of) an Internet edition that exists on various different sites, all of which contain the same typo patterns. in particular, there are at least two glaringly obvious typos /per page/, a bunch of meaning-changing homophone errors (not intended by the author, as they don't appear in editions which had, you know, editors), not to mention what I think is a near-complete removal of the author's original italics, which changes both emphasis, meaning and level of humor inherent in the text. if the "publishers" of my edition had bothered to even read the 50-page leaflet they charged me 9 bucks for (printed on demand, btw - the printing datestamp was the same day i ordered it), they would've fixed at least some of the bugs and not left this a frustrating and obnoxious reading experience.
this edition here that i picked for the review, on the other hand -- according to samples i was able to compare from Google Books -- has corrected all the typos and printed a version which does good credit to both the author and the reader. if you want it, get this one instead. (it may have other writings in it than "letters from the earth;" check the manifest. i'm only reviewing that little collection.)
February 27, 2015
This is a collection of writings that Mark Twain didn't publish in his lifetime. The best parts were the sections where Mark Twain translated the ancient diaries of the Adam Family (as in Adam and Eve). Here is an excerpt from the conversation Adam and Eve had after they were forbidden the fruit...
"Good and evil?"
"Yes."
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"Why, those things. What is good?"
"I do not know. How should I know?"
"Well, then, what is evil?"
"I suppose it is the name of something, but I do not know what."
"But, Adam, you must have some idea of what it is."
"Why should I have some idea? I have never seen the thing, how am I to form any conception of it? "
...
"How stupid we are! Let us eat of it; we shall die, and then we shall know what it is, and not have any more bother about it."
Then Mark Twain reports that they were saved from partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil at that time by a new creature that flew by that Adam hadn't yet named. They followed it and he named it Pterodactyl. I thought it was pretty witty stuff.
There were some other sections that weren't quite as good, but overall I'm glad I read it and wish that Mark Twain was around to write about stuff happening nowadays. Now I'll have to check out some more of his stuff that wasn't required reading in school.
"Good and evil?"
"Yes."
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"Why, those things. What is good?"
"I do not know. How should I know?"
"Well, then, what is evil?"
"I suppose it is the name of something, but I do not know what."
"But, Adam, you must have some idea of what it is."
"Why should I have some idea? I have never seen the thing, how am I to form any conception of it? "
...
"How stupid we are! Let us eat of it; we shall die, and then we shall know what it is, and not have any more bother about it."
Then Mark Twain reports that they were saved from partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil at that time by a new creature that flew by that Adam hadn't yet named. They followed it and he named it Pterodactyl. I thought it was pretty witty stuff.
There were some other sections that weren't quite as good, but overall I'm glad I read it and wish that Mark Twain was around to write about stuff happening nowadays. Now I'll have to check out some more of his stuff that wasn't required reading in school.
September 15, 2009
Excerpt:
"Now there you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine parts that can be put to bed to her. [Man:] puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man." - Letter VIII
Take from that what you will. ;D
"Now there you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine parts that can be put to bed to her. [Man:] puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man." - Letter VIII
Take from that what you will. ;D
July 20, 2020
Esta relectura realizada en el 2017 de uno de mis libros favoritos de este escritor; es una novela epistolar de la correspondencia que Satanás escribe a los Arcángeles Miguel y Gabriel. Satanás por sus comentarios mordaces ha sido enviado exiliado a la tierra y en sus cartas narra lo que los hombres de las religiones cristianas, principalmente, creen sobre Dios y su propio lugar en la creación. Es la oda a las contradicciones humanas.Tuvo que pasar 50 años desde la muerte de Twain para que el mundo pudiera "tolerar" este libro y recién fue publicado en 1962. Por favor, léalo.
June 24, 2012
Letters from the Earth was fantastic. I loved the writing and the way that Mark Twain shed light on the hypocrisy of religion and the human notion of God. After that section however, the book became very dull very quickly. As this book is a collection of his writings, I felt that a lot of it did not flow together. If things were tied together tighter, my rating would have been higher but I just found everything after Letters from the Earth to be highly boring.
February 11, 2020
Wow. This is actually my first book that is without plot, if you know what I mean. And I really, really liked it. If I could, I'd include a few quotes so you could know what I'm talking about, but unfortuantely I did nit read this in English and translating back would be awkward. Anyways, I totally recommend this one!
→4 stars
→4 stars
February 3, 2015
An amazing book that gives the reader a different perspective about religious characters while giving the reader the feeling that these fictional characters are real. You can never go wrong with Mark Twain
July 4, 2016
One of the very few books I've read three times, at least parts of it. I first read it on a plane and I could not stop cracking up. I tried to interest my seatmate, but he preferred his portable DVD player. Alas!
August 21, 2021
My second reading. It's hard for me to get enough of MT, from his laugh-out-loud early writings to his later, bitingly sarcastic observations on the follies of the human race. This novella wasn't released to the public until 1962 by his remaining daughter Clara, 52 years after his death.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 535 reviews